and crucially, it's not taking 70% of your $12/month and parceling it out to the artists you listen to, it's taking everyone's money and putting it in a big bucket and parceling out it proportionally by stream numbers, so you can't direct $8.40 to an artist by only streaming them.

If you want to direct a few dollars to an artist you really do need to buy their music (or mech), or somehow give them a couple thousand streams.